


Cross Oceans

by AngeK15



Category: Free!
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-27
Updated: 2014-07-27
Packaged: 2018-02-10 15:42:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2030688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngeK15/pseuds/AngeK15
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They won the relay medley, and are now preparing for nationals. But now a new team stands in the Iwatobi swim club's way. Hints of Mako/Haru, Rei/Nagisa, Gou/Seijuurou. This was written before Eternal Summer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ice Water

A serene smile graced Makoto’s features, the sun shone down heavily upon the ground, warming his back as he walked through the gates to the swimming pool. He and Haru usually walked to the pool together, but Makoto had to run some errands for his mother before practice, so he told Haru to go on without him.

After they won the regionals, the members of Iwatobi Swim Club had realised that they needed to improve much more to get to where they wanted to be for the Nationals. Gou had them working twice as hard as they had when they were actually preparing for the regionals, because as Gou had said: They were competing against the top swimmers in the entire nation. 

With Rin in the team, they were better and faster than they ever were before, and usually whenever Makoto arrived at the club, he would often find Rin helping Rei to improve his butterfly stroke so he could match up to his pace.

When Makoto arrived at the pool, he found Nagisa, Rei and Haru already there, in their swimming gear and stretching their muscles. Nagisa waved cheerfully when he saw Makoto there and bounded towards Makoto, bouncing on the balls of his feet. He had way too much energy for someone so small. He grinned at Makoto.

“Mako-chan!” He called out. “Do you know where Rin and Gou are?”

Makoto scanned the area around him. The pool was glistening with the sun on the water, and Haru looked just about ready to jump in. Rin and Gou were nowhere to be found, and that was odd since Gou was the team manager, she always made it a point upon herself to get there before everyone else did, Rin usually tagging along with her.  
“Oh? Are they not here yet?” He asked, his eyebrows knitting together. He made his way next to Haru and Rei, sitting down with them.   
Nagisa shook his head. “Nope! Rei and I thought you would know, since you were late too!” 

“I told you. Makoto had to do something for his mother.” Haru said, unblinking eyes staring at Nagisa.

Nagisa waved him off. “Oh well! Should we call them?” He asked cheerfully, walking towards the stands where he kept his duffel bag and his mobile phone without waiting for an answer.

“Might as well.” Rei called out. Nagisa unzipped his light blue duffel bag, pulling out a smart phone, walking back towards were Haru, Makoto and Rei sat, with their feet in the water. He dialled a number, pressed a button and put it on loudspeaker. The dialling tone sounded, and then it started ringing. A few rings later, someone picked up the phone.

“Hello?” A drowsy voice breathed.

“Rin-chan! Aren’t you awake yet? We’re waiting on you and Gou!” Nagisa chided.

A groan sounded through the speaker. “Eh! My alarm didn’t go off! It’s a piece of junk. Gou should’ve woke me up or something anyway.” There was the sound of the bed creaking. “We’ll be there as soon as we can.” He said seriously, and then the phone went off.

“Well… I suppose we’ll just have to wait for them until get into the pool. We can’t start without them after all.” Rei said after a few moments.

“How about we relax in the pool, we shouldn’t over exert ourselves before we even start though.” Makoto said with a smile. 

He looked at Haru, whose face brightened up and without a warning he slipped into the pool gracefully, without even a splash.

“I’m going to wait for them.” Rei announced, moving over to sit near the stands.

Nagisa made a noise of discontentment. “You’re so boring Rei-chan! Come into the pool!”

Rei rolled his eyes. “I’ll come into the pool when I want to.” Nagisa wandered over to Rei. “Eh-! Nagisa stop pulling on my arm! Hey, stop it!”

There was a splash as Nagisa pushed Rei into the pool. He emerged spluttering water out of his mouth, and calling out indignantly, pulling off his glasses, and swimming towards the edge, and swung out of the pool. “Hey! What did you do that for! You could have ruined my glasses!” 

Nagisa grinned innocently, his feet at the edge of the pool, giggling a little. Rei walked towards his backpack, sitting a little while away from where Nagisa was, unzipped it and placed his glasses in, and pulled out his prescription goggles, putting them on. 

“Ah, so now you want to go into the pool?” Nagisa asked.

“Only because you pushed me in!” Rei explained resentfully. Makoto noticed his mouth turn up into a mischievous grin. “Now, it’s your turn.” Before Nagisa could react, he pushed him into the pool.

Makoto refrained from rolling his eyes. The two of the bickered like an old married couple. It was sort of endearing. He jumped into the pool himself, Nagisa appearing from the water as he dove in.

The cool water enclosed around him and he swam over to Haru, who was floating in the water with his eyes closed. He seemed so peaceful, like he never was when he was out of the water. He opened one of his bright blue eyes, gazing directly at Makoto. Makoto observed him.

Haru turned over onto his defined stomach, and began to swim laps around the pool slowly. Makoto sighed happily. In the water was the only place where Haru was at ease. He floated on his back, his arms and legs spread out like a starfish, the sun’s rays in his closed eyes.

It was peaceful for a few moments, until they heard Gou’s shrill voice.

“I’m the reason that we’re late? Well, I’ll have you know that your alarm broke 5 days ago! I’ve told you over and over again but you never listen to me, do you?” She said huffily.  
Makoto positioned himself upright, kicking his legs so he stayed standing. The two siblings came through the gates, Gou with her hair hastily tied in a ponytail and Rin with bags under his eyes. They were both wearing casual clothes, but they looked like they were hastily thrown on, like they had just picked them up out of their closet or off the ground at random. Rin was wearing a white shirt that read I heart Australia in English letters and jeans with flip flops (thongs, as he adamantly called them), and Gou was dressed more decently, in a rainbow leopard patterned tank top and purple shorts with converses, she was a walking colour explosion.

Rin’s booming voice called through now: “You always make blame me for everything, why don’t you get your own alarm or turn on the one on your phone instead of relying on mine all the time! Not to mention how long it takes you to get ready!” Rin was fuming and his face was red, it seemed that they had argued all the way here. 

“Eh? You have got to be the worst brother ever!”

He looked behind him. Rei and Nagisa stopped what they were doing looking at the quarrelling siblings, and Haru was floating in the water, a frown on his face.  
Makoto coughed loudly, and the siblings stopped talking, apparently noticing that they had an audience.

“What?” They both barked in unison at Makoto.

He got out of the pool, crossing his arms. Gou’s cheeks went bright red, though he wasn’t sure why. “You have a swim team to manage.” He reminded Gou. Rin smirked, apparently thinking that he was taking his side. Makoto turned to Rin. “And you have to help Rei improve his butterfly.”

They both rolled their eyes. “Okay Mom.” They shoved past Makoto, Gou sat at the edge of the pool, pouting and Rin took his bag off his back and threw it onto the ground and began to strip down to his swim suit. 

Makoto looked at him with apprehension. He knew that Rin had a short temper and he wouldn’t like to burn it any further, but before he could even say anything Rin jumped into the pool without a moment’s hesitation and began swimming further away from him to where Rei and Nagisa were. Nagisa had somehow managed to climb upon Rei’s back and had also dislodged his goggles, so he was bumping around a complaining whenever he stubbed his toe on the walls of the pool.

“H-Hey! Get off Nagisa!” He shouted. “Ouch!” He hissed as he slammed his knee into the wall, then slipped and fell backwards, Nagisa fell back into the water, and Rei regained his footing at the last moment, and as soon as Nagisa resurfaced, a grin on his face like usual, Rei began reprimanding him then snatched his goggles from Nagisa’s hand and putting them on his head, not even taking a breath to pause his lecture.

Then Rin arrived between the two and guided Rei away from Nagisa to the opposite side of the pool.

“You stay there.” Rin warned Nagisa. Nagisa nodded obediently. A few moments passed and then followed them to where Rin was helping Rei to improve his stroke. Rin rolled his eyes but didn’t say anything, thankfully.

Makoto had walked the perimeter of the pool next to Gou, looking upon all his friends graciously. He looked towards Gou, who was frowning with her arms crossed. Upon closer inspection, he noticed that she looked tired and worn out. She wasn’t her usual cheerful self. 

“Gou… Is everything okay-?”

“Everything’s fine.” She said pertly, not looking at Makoto, she didn’t even seem to realise that he said ‘Gou’ instead of ‘Kou’

Gou was stubborn; he wasn’t going to get an answer out of her anytime soon, so Makoto sighed. “Okay. Well if there is anything, we can help.”   
Gou didn’t say anything for a while. “I’ll keep that in mind. But first, we need to practise!”

Her quick change of demeanour startled Makoto. Gou stood up and started shouting for everyone else to gather around her.

“We’re going to start with something easy now, okay? Just race laps across the length of the pool and try to beat your personal best!”

Makoto bit his bottom lip. He hoped that Gou and Rin would sort out whatever was bothering them, and whatever it was, he knew it wasn’t over something petty like being late for swim practise.


	2. Blow Out

Gou called off practise prematurely as a loud crack of thunder rolled through the skies. Haru stayed behind, like he usually did after training ended, even though it was inexorably going to rain soon enough, but since they were his only peaceful moments he could get, Makoto waved goodbye to him, not totally sure he could see him, half under the water and left. 

While Haru’s moments of peace was in the water, Makoto’s own peaceful moments were the solitary moments he spent walking to and from the swimming club, they were the times he could think clearly, the times of self-realisation for him.

The sun was clouded over by grey clouds, and a cool breeze was blowing, ruffling Makoto’s still slightly damp hair. He began to walk faster, hoping to out-walk the cold weather that was inevitably going to blow through soon. He silently thanked Gou for cancelling practise before the weather began to pick up.

At the thought of Gou, Makoto wondered what was truly going on between the Matsuoka siblings to create such tension between the two. Rin was abnormally quiet at practise; when he was usually rather angry, or on rare days, quite cheerful enough to rival even Nagisa. 

Makoto scuffed the soles of his shoes on the pavement. Thunder rumbled through the sky, and the first droplets of water began to fall from the clouds.

“Ah, crap.” Makoto grumbled out loud. Thankfully his home wasn’t too far from the pool. He picked up the pace, and a voice called out to him.

“Makoto.” A calm voice said behind him. Makoto jumped, startled, and turned around.

“Haru!” Makoto exclaimed. “You scared me.”

“Sorry.” Haru said bluntly, he was breathing heavily; it seemed he had to run to catch up with him. Haru matched his pace alongside Makoto.

Makoto smiled. “Nice weather.” He pointed out, and Haru grunted in response. They walked the rest of the way home in silence, except for when they said goodbye to each other.  
That was the way that they both worked, Makoto tried to make conversation, Haru kept quiet, but most of the time, Makoto didn’t need him to speak, he knew what Haru was feeling without an exchange of words, like he could read Haru’s mind.

Makoto took off his shoes at his door, fished his keys out of his pocket and opened the door quietly, although he knew that his little siblings would be sure to hear the jangle of his keys and spring on him like they usually did. Makoto was sure that they spent their time waiting in front of the door for him to get home, since they were there before he even opened the door.

“Makoto!” His younger sister and brother exclaimed jovially. 

Makoto grinned cheerfully, lifting the two children up in his arms, Makoto felt like they weighed nothing less than a feather in his arms, usually they would climb onto him before he was even ready, although he had expected it every day, but after his last outburst, they knew better, and besides, Makoto was feeling bad for losing his temper and yelling at them.

Makoto’s father’s voice echoed throughout the corridor where Makoto was.

“Eh, Makoto, don’t drop those kids hey?” 

Ren and Ran giggled lightly. 

“Wouldn’t dream of it, dad!’ Makoto replied, his siblings were hanging off his arms, and Makoto adjusted them around so they were clutched against his hip instead. 

“How was your day, Makoto?” Makoto’s mother came from around the sliding door, smiling peacefully, like she always was. 

Makoto let his siblings off, and they went running to their mother energetically. “It was okay…” He let it trail off. His mother knew immediately that something was wrong, and her eyes turned downwards, giving him a silent look. Makoto got the message: She was going to want him to talk to her later.

To other people that he knew, Makoto’s mother’s overbearingness would have annoyed anyone else, but Makoto didn’t mind it. It meant that he knew that she cared about him and his happiness. 

Makoto smiled to his mother, to let her know that he was fine, and walked to his bedroom, when he was out of sight, he slumped his shoulders and let out a deep sigh, and collapsed into the swirly chair at his desk. He wondered what it would have to take to find out what was going on with Gou and Rin. 

He pulled out his phone out of his jeans pocket, tapping lightly on messages, then on Rin’s name. The last text message they shared together shone brightly in the dimness of his room. He tried to think of something to write to him that wouldn’t sound like he was pushing Rin to answer to him, but he couldn’t think of anything.

He groaned and set his phone on his desk none too gently. A looming tower of homework was set beside it. He sighed, he never had any time to do his homework because of practise, usually doing it in the dead of night when everyone was asleep, but since he had time now, Makoto supposed he could do it.

He pulled off the first thing that was piled on top: A booklet for his English homework. Makoto sighed, he was decent at English, but the language had too many faults and words that sounded the same but meant different things… but it was basically essential to learn Basic English at least, considering all the tourists that went holidaying in Japan that would often stop to ask where some monument or temple was. 

Rin was exemplary at English, since he had spent his time at the school in Australia, and Makoto would often ask him to help him with his work, but he would end up doing the whole thing for Makoto anyway, but it was becoming harder and harder to talk to Makoto. Makoto didn’t hope that he was becoming jealous of Haru again; he wouldn’t have been able to deal with that.

Makoto began to start to work on his work, translating English phrases to Japanese phrases.

Makoto only worked on that for a couple of minutes, when his phone started flashing: a text message.

It was from Haru.

Somebody’s trashed the pool. 

Makoto scanned the letters. It wasn’t unlike Haru to go back to the pool even after he had packed up and left. He was alone most of the time, and his parents wouldn’t mind, even if they knew that he goes swimming at the most irregular times, mostly in the dead of the night.

Trashed the pool? But how? He replied.

Haru’s answer was quick. There’s graffiti on the walls and somebody has tainted the pool with some kind of orange dye. The graffiti only has one word: Nakaya. 

Makoto frowned. Wasn’t that the name of the town thirty minutes outside of Iwatobi? But why would somebody graffiti the name of a town?

Makoto looked at his homework he was attempting to do, and then back at his phone. His English teacher was threatening detention if he didn’t get it finished in time, and it was due in two days.

Makoto sighed. He supposed he could do his homework tomorrow. He didn’t have anything planned, and since Haru was obviously asking for his help, there wasn’t much he could do.

Okay, I can get to the pool now to help clean up. Have you messaged the others?

He waited a moment, and then Haru replied.

Nagisa and Rei said they were busy, and I haven’t had a reply from Gou or Rin.

Makoto had expected that answer, Gou and Rin hadn’t been replying to any of their messages at all recently, and Makoto had failed to see why. Nagisa and Rei often rejected their   
requests, often unanimously.

Makoto got out of his chair, running a hand through is messy hair.

“I’m going back to the swim club!” He called out, opening his bedroom door, and walking through the corridor to the front door. His father replied, calling out a cheerful “Okay!”, he heard his mother sighed, she wasn’t so accepting, but she didn’t say anything.

Makoto slipped his shoes back on, and made his way back to the swim club. When he arrived there, it was greatly worse than what Haru had described to him. Literally every square inch of pavement and walls, were emblazoned with dusty orange graffiti, the hiragana Nakaya, was tagged. The pool was the same colour as the paint, but also floating on top were brown leaves, sticks and dirt. 

Haru who stood beside him, blue eyes glistening. He turned towards Makoto searchingly.

“Who would do this?” His voice was low, but brimming with anger and hurt.

“I don’t know.” Makoto answered calmly. “But we’ll find out, okay?” He turned towards his best friend. It pained him to see him hurt. “We’ll find out.” He repeated.


	3. Sailor Song

Makoto had called his mother and told her the details of what had happened to the swimming pool, and she made a noise of shock and immediately began exclaiming that she would be there right away with cleaning supplies.

Makoto felt a rush of appreciation rush through him. “Thanks!” He said gratefully, a smile gracing his features “I don’t know what I would do without you.”

He hung up the phone and looked at Haru, who looked back at him searchingly, as if trying to pry information from his eyes.

“Mum is going to come over with cleaning stuff so we can go ahead and clean everything.” He said. Haru looked away, he still wasn’t satisfied. He balled his fists, and Makoto realised at once that he wasn’t upset about the vandalism. He was angry. 

“Are you alright?” Makoto asked him. 

Haru crossed him arms and looked away. He let out a huff of air. “I’m fine.” He mumbled, although it was obvious that he wasn’t. 

Makoto moved closer to him, and gently put a comforting hand on his shoulder. Haru’s blue eyes found Makoto’s green ones, and the corners of Haru’s mouth turned up.

“I’m glad you’re here, Makoto.” He said finally.

Makoto smiled in return. “Let’s see what we can do about cleaning the pool.” He said. He spotted the cleaning cabinet, and went to get some nets out to go about getting the filth and debris out of the pool. 

He bought out two, one for him and one for Haru gave it to him, and they both stood on the opposite edges of the pool and began fishing out the debris, discarding it in the nearby rubbish bin. Several minutes passed until Makoto’s mother arrived. Makoto and Haru were surprised when Nagisa and Rei came out of the small car along with Makoto’s mother.

“I saw them walking to the shops together, so I pulled them over and told them of the situation!” She said proudly. 

Nagisa and Rei looked around the pool slack-jawed. Makoto’s mother bought out a buckets full of sponges and gave Rei and Nagisa one each, who each went to the taps in the changing room to fill it up with clean water, and when they came back, began to scrub diligently at the graffiti. They had not said a word, but it was obvious that they were just as shocked as Makoto and Haru were. Makoto’s mother helped with getting the debris out of the pool. She hummed a tune under her breath, to help everything get along, and Nagisa tuned in, which ended up with him belting out in song loudly, much to Rei’s dismay.

Soon enough sticks and leaves were out of the pool, only leaving the orange water to be removed, somehow. Nagisa and Rei were still working on the spray paint. The air had become chilly, and goose bumps arose on Makoto’s skin. They had been working well into the night, and Makoto was tired.

Thankfully his mother took pity on them all. “How about we continue cleaning up tomorrow night, since you all have school tomorrow. You wouldn’t all want to be falling asleep in class now,” She said in her patient, cheerful way. “And I’m fairly certain that someone has some homework to catch up on.” She added with an impertinent look toward Makoto, whose cheeks turned red in return.

Everybody mumbled, too tired and worn out to say another word. Makoto’s mother asked if they all wanted a lift home, and they all nodded. They all clambered into the car, with Makoto in the passenger seat, and Haru, Nagisa and Rei together in the back seat. 

They dropped Rei off at his house first, then Nagisa, then finally Haru. Makoto was almost falling asleep by the time that they returned to his house, and he dragged himself into his room and as soon as he changed out of his clothes, he slumped into his bed, half-naked, with on his boxers on, and was out like a light. 

When Makoto woke up, it was morning, and his alarm was blaring in his ears. He sat upright on his bed. The sun filtered through Makoto’s blinds. Dust particles were floating in the air, as Makoto rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, and proceeded to yawn hugely.

He got out of his bed, stretching his muscles. Interlinking his tanned and toned arms and moving them from side to side, then lift his arms up, stretching his back.

He ran a hand through his hair, and then walked out of his room to get his uniform from the laundry. He pulled it on, not bothering to go into his room and put it on, since he had nothing to hide. He wouldn’t say it out loud, for fear of sounding vain to others, but he was rather proud of his huge muscled body.

As he came out to the kitchen to get his packed lunch, pulling on his jacket, and grabbing a green apple for breakfast simultaneously, his mother was there in the kitchen like she usually was, making lunch for Ran and Ren. She smiled her comfortable familiar smile to him and he returned the smile. 

He returned back to his room, to grab his school bag to put his things in and his half-finished homework which he decided he could try to complete before his classes started, and then made his way out of the house to meet up with Haru, the events of what had happened last night still clear in his mind, racking his brain about who would go so low to graffiti their pool. He sighed, figuring that it was probably only a couple of juveniles who had nothing better to do with their time.

Haru was already waiting outside for Makoto when he arrived at his doorstep, with his hands in his pockets, ready to make his way to the school.  
“Hey.” Makoto said casually.

“Hi.” Haru said quietly.

“Still upset about what happened to the pool?” Makoto asked warily.

Haru nodded.   
“We’ll figure out what happened. We’ll tell Rin about it when we see him as well. Maybe he’ll know something.” Makoto’s voice was gentle, and looking at Haru, he could see him visibly relax slightly by the sound of his voice.

“Okay.” Haru mumbled.

When they had arrived at school, Makoto only had 5 minutes to do his homework before class started, and as he sat down at a table and pulled his homework out of his bag, Haru looked at him strangely.

“Oh. Were you doing your homework before I called you last night?” He asked.

Makoto looked up at him. “Oh, yeah. But it was overdue anyway.”

Haru looked at him with unblinking eyes. “Sorry.” He said.

Makoto frowned. “What are you sorry for? You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Haru shrugged, looking away.

Makoto continued on, “Besides it’s my own fault for not completing this sooner.” He indicated towards his English work book. 

He bought out a pen and began translating phrases. Suddenly a shadow loomed over him, and Makoto’s eyes lifted off his worksheet to face the owner of the shadow.

“Rin!” Makoto exclaimed in surprise. He looked like a mess, with dark bags under his eyes and unwashed hair. His uniform even looked a bit dirty too.

He slumped down on the bench, next to Makoto. Haru gazed at him studiously.

“You look tired.” Haru said bluntly.

Makoto looked at Haru sternly. Be careful what you say! His look seemed to indicate. Recently, Rin had become a lot more ticked off and short-tempered about small things that people would say about his appearance, so mostly everyone knew not to comment on it, although Makoto wanted to know what was happening with him and Gou, since they both looked tired and stressed out all the time.

Rin glared at Haru, but Haru ignored it. “Somebody trashed the swim club last night.” He mentioned.

“What?” Rin exclaimed, but he seemed preoccupied with something else. 

“Someone trashed the swim club and graffiti-ed the walls with Nakaya.”

“What, like the town?” Rin asked.

Haru nodded.  
Rin’s arms were clasped in his lap. “Doesn’t Nakaya have their own provincial swim club? I heard that the whole team were a bunch of delinquents, from what Seijuurou told me.” 

The bell rang shrilly for class. Rin stood up abruptly, adjusting his back pack so it hung on one shoulder, and made his way to his own class, leaving Makoto and Haru to ponder what Rin had said. 

From what he had said, there was no other logical explanation. It had to have been the Nakaya swim club who had vandalised the swim club. Makoto looked at Haru, who looked   
as if he was going to sought revenge right at that very moment.

“Come on.” Makoto said. “Let’s go to class.” 

Haru didn’t respond, so Makoto had to grab him by the wrist and forcibly drag him to English class, which he was dreading, because of his unfinished homework.  
No doubt would that be a detention for Makoto.


End file.
